Congress workers staged a dharna outside the party’s district committee office here on Tuesday to protest the “unnecessary delay” in the announcement of the Lok Sabha candidate for Amethi and demand that Rahul Gandhi contest from the seat.
The demonstrators, who raised the slogan “Amethi mange Gandhi, Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi”, were joined by some locals.
Anil Singh, media in-charge of the district Congress committee, said: “Every
day hundreds of people from the district visit our office and ask us when the
name of Rahul or Priyanka Gandhi would be announced from here.”
Narsingh Bahadur, a local Congress leader, said the voters of the constituency wanted to rectify the “mistake” they had made in 2019. Rahul had lost to the BJP’s Smriti Irani the last time.
“We are in a very awkward situation. The people tell us that they committed a mistake in 2019 and lost their respect in the world. Amethi was a highly honoured constituency when the members of the Nehru-Gandhi family used to represent us in Parliament. But the country forgot it when Smriti Irani won in 2019,” Bahadur said.
Bahadur added: “They say that they want to restore the respect of the constituency. They request us to inform the party leaders that they want Rahul or Priyanka back. But we are not in a position to promise anything to them.”
He said the dharna would continue on Wednesday.
Filing of nominations started in Amethi on April 26 and will continue till May 3.
Pradeep Singhal, district Congress president, said: “The voters of Amethi are willing to vote for Rahul or Priyanka. They guarantee their victory. These people say that Amethi has become like any other constituency where someone wins and then ignores the needs of the area. Many educational institutes were built here when Sonia Gandhi became MP in 1999. Rahul opened new colleges, connected them with the broad gauge rail line and constructed several roads. He personally helped many people. But this personal touch is missing now.”
Singhal said the people of Amethi used to believe that they were from a VIP constituency. “But this feeling is missing now and it is unacceptable to them. This is why we the Congressmen are on dharna here. We want the party to declare Rahul or Priyanka’s name immediately,” he added.
Rohit Singh, former vice-president of the Uttar Pradesh Youth Congress, said the situation was similar to 1998 when they had gone to Delhi to tell the party leaders that they wanted Sonia to contest from Amethi.
“A large number of people went to meet Sonia but couldn’t meet her. We submitted our letter at the Congress office and handed another letter to Sitaram Kesri. Finally, Sonia contested from here in 1999 and won,” Singh said.
Kalyan Singh Gandhi, who was an All India Congress Committee member at that time, said: “In fact, Kesri and many other leaders of the party were against Sonia joining politics. But we wanted her to ignore the opinion of Kesri and his coterie at that time.”
Several senior Congress leaders of Uttar Pradesh said they have got information that Rahul and Priyanka would contest from Amethi and Rae Bareli, neighbouring constituencies, respectively.
“According to our information, the decision has already been taken to field them from the two constituencies. It is now up to them to agree to it,” a state-level leader said.
